Decadence
by Spectral Scribe
Summary: PostCommencement: Something terrible happens to Chloe that forever changes her life and propels everyone straight into their destinies. COMPLETE
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own or lay claim to any Smallville characters.

Decadence

Prologue

Being the closer of the two, Chloe received the worst of the explosion.

A brilliant, blinding, resplendent blast of light exploded through the cave with energy so fierce that it shook the walls as it flared outwards in all directions. Instinctively, Chloe's arms flew up to shield her face as she was swept clear off her feet and into the rough wall behind her. There she was pinned, her feet dangling into nothingness, for a fraction of a second— the light, like the gust of a hurricane, holding her chest; the jagged, ancient wall supporting her back. Her right hand was out the furthest, still attempting to protect her vulnerable face. It felt like the light were searing her palm, burning it as if a torch were being applied to the skin.

_A torch. How ironic._

When the infinitesimal yet infinite moment ended, the light receded and Chloe was dropped like a rag doll onto the ground. Her forehead came into contact with solid rock, and with a sharp crack she was out cold.

Letting out a groan, she squinted one eye open into a slit and found consciousness swimming in and out of focus before her. All she could see was the uninteresting, coarse ground stretching out around her. Aching consumed her entire body, but mostly her head, which pounded like the tireless beat of an advancing army's footsteps. Deciding that it wouldn't be very productive to lie there all day, she rolled over and sat up, placing a hand to her forehead and discovering a steam of crimson blood flowing from a deep gash.

_That's good. It'll accessorize nicely with my red purse._

But it wasn't the time for pointless sarcasm, she realized as she stood up, spotting an unconscious Lex Luthor sprawled out in a far corner. Dimly aware of a continuous pain in her hand, Chloe turned over her right palm for a closer examination. Her lungs momentarily constricted as she stared, wide-eyed, at her branded palm. Burned into her raw red skin were three small black marks. One she recognized instantly, for she had seen it earlier that day on the stone in Clark's hand— when she had found him, lo and behold, passed out in Lex's mansion. The other two symbols looked chillingly like others found in the caves.

_So Clark is connected to the caves. The caves are connected to the stones. The stones are connected to the blast of light. The blast of light is connected to… my hand? And the leg bone's connected to the knee bone!_

She shook her head futilely, seeing that her random thought process was partially due to her normal brain (_or lack thereof_) and partly due to her recent head trauma. Dropping her fascinating hand for the time being, Chloe's eyes danced around the cave in search of her friend, from whom the strange blast of light had emitted. Yet the unmistakable broad shoulders and plaid were nowhere to be found. Neither, apparently, was the alcove in which he had stood.

Not possible. Chloe warily trod over to the spot where the opening had been. Her heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest. Nothing. Where there had once been a doorway now adamantly sat a solid wall. Feeling as if she had been thrust into some freakish funhouse, Chloe tested her voice, which remained quiet so as to not awaken her captor.

"Clark?"

The harsh whisper that escaped her lips fell dead in the air. She stared blankly at the firm, unmoving wall. She had seen people who could control bees, start fires, teleport— hell, she had witnessed the depth of Clark's powers— yet she could not for the life of her fathom a moving wall. Her reportorial curiosity, which sometimes felt like a chronic disease to her, overcame her rationality as she stepped forward. She eyed the innocent looking wall as if attempting to sway it out of its disguise by staring at it. Was Clark still in the room masquerading as a cave wall? Had he been chucked somewhere far off from the blast? Had that overwhelming light hurt him? Then again, what could hurt Clark, right? Still, she called out his name again, louder this time. Was he… _behind_ the wall, perchance? She stepped so close to the wall that she was mere inches from it, ready to press her ear against its rocky texture to try and hear anything going on behind it. It was what she often did with the door of her bedroom to see if the coast was clear to sneak out late at night- a tactic she had never divulged to her father.

She lifted her hands to place them on the stone wall, allowing her fingers to brush the jagged rock. It was cold. She pressed her palms up against it. Her right palm began to sear again as if she had placed her hand on a stovetop. And suddenly the wall exploded in a burst of pure white light so intense that Chloe had to squint and stumbled back a few paces, her arms once again flying up to shield her eyes from being blinded. The light was terrible, unbearable… yet somehow intriguing, beckoning to her. In a lapse of thought, she started moving forward again, toward the cave wall that had vanished behind the glare, into the light…


	2. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

The walls were gray. Dull. It looked as if they were supposed to be shiny chrome, but something had gone wrong— no light pervaded them, so they had nothing to reflect back into the square room but dreariness. Insipidity. Not pain, but a doleful, aching existence. Listless. Lifeless. Gray.

The ceiling was the same. So was the floor. There were no windows in the room but for the solitary frame of glass no greater than one square foot in the center of the single door. The door was also gray. And locked. It never opened unless one of the guards with the ring of large silver keys crunched the right one into the lock, causing a metallic click to resound through the room. That was another thing. They liked to echo, the walls. Whenever a sound was created, it always continued on and on forever in the room, mocking her. But it wasn't only when the guards came in that the door opened. It was also when He came in. He had the master key. He ran all operations. He had total control over everything that happened, both inside the little room and outside it. But mostly outside it. There wasn't much that ever happened in the little room. So there wasn't much to control.

There was one other thing in the room aside from the gray walls and door. A light hung from a short chain at the ceiling, dangling precariously in the air. Its effulgence was dim. Gray. Like the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling. Like everything else in the empty, barren room. Like the heart of the sole inhabitant of the little square room.

Chloe Sullivan. Intrepid reporter— plucky, spunky, dazzling. Now a shell. A mere shell of her former witty, sarcastic, endearing self. Reporter? She couldn't even report the weather. She never saw it. Not the sun, the clouds, the rain, the stars. She never saw much of anything outside those four walls that encased the little square room. The little, square, gray room. Gray. Lifeless.

She lay in the position that was typical of her in the morning. Her unhealthily skinny frame was curled up in the furthest corner of the room; she faced the gloomy expanse of the room, her sunken eyes forever trained on the door and her left ear pressed against the cold floor to listen for the faintest reverberation of sound. One thing she hadn't forgotten from science class was that sound traveled faster through solid than gas. So she listened for the familiar tap, scuff, tap of His shoes so that she knew when he was approaching. So far it was quiet.

Though only very slightly, she was shivering. The room was always kept at a temperature just cold enough to be uncomfortable, and she was never given reprieve. The floor was colder, though. The smooth, hard surface of the floor was like ice. Yet she pressed her pale, gaunt cheek and bare arms against it anyway, welcoming the bitter cold, welcoming the numbness. The grayness.

Her caved-in stomach that now revealed the outline of her ribcage gave a depressing glimmer of a growl. She had long since become accustomed to the two-meal-a-day rule, which allowed her some snippet of food twice a day— she used to pretend that it was a steak as she chewed down the meager portion slowly. But there was no such thing as make-believe. Not anymore. Still, her rumbling stomach gave away the tardiness of her usual bowl of cold oatmeal for breakfast. Her dull eyes drifted over to the door. The little square room was like clockwork. An aberration in the schedule like that of a late meal could mean only one thing.

The Table.

Chloe felt a massive shiver overtake her body, partially from the cold's penetration into her skin and partially from the nauseating thought of the Table. Then, clear as crystal, the familiar sound crept into her left ear, resounding through the floor like footsteps on death row. Tap, scuff, tap. Tap, scuff, tap. The crunch of a key being jammed into the lock. A metallic click.

"Bring her to the Table," He ordered, His voice as slick as His casual stride that echoed down the corridor and all the way to Chloe's ear. Two large guards stepped into the room, their beefy arms swinging at their sides like chimpanzees. Chloe made no attempt to move. She simply lay there limply while the men rolled her over roughly and grabbed her by the arms. Once she was in a standing position, she tried to move her feet with the guards to walk on her own, but eventually she just let her legs hang limply. The guards lifted her high enough so that only her feet dragged on the floor, rather than being dragged along on her knees like that other guard did, the one with the crew cut.

The silver floor splashed by her like waves of liquid chrome. Her eyes drooped to the floor, staring blankly until she caught her reflection. She did not recognize the haunted, skeletal face that stared up at her with a despondent, lost gaze. The reflection had blonde hair that almost looked brown with filth. It was long and scraggly, hanging somewhere near her shoulders in greasy tangles. Unable to bear looking at that pathetic girl in the floor, Chloe closed her eyes and let herself be taken to the room. It was a bigger room than hers, and it had all sorts of equipment that looked like it might belong either in a science laboratory or a hospital. But it reminded her more of the former. It sat in the very center of the room.

The Table.

As her eyes swept over the pristine room, a memory washed into her mind like a cool, black tidal wave. She thought of the last time she saw the sun, felt fresh air on her face, felt warmth. Seeing the Table again, feeling the forever bitter air cling to her skin, being encased in those four walls that looked just the same as in her little square room… It made her think of her last memory of freedom, when she had gotten herself into this mess…

"Now, who took the element!" Lex practically screamed into her face, his own contorted with anger and frustration. Chloe stared at him fearfully, her eyes widening at his break in sanity.

"Lex, I swear I don't know what you're talking about-" He cut her off with an aggravated growl as he let go of her and turned away. Chloe ventured on, "But I think we need to get out of Smallville before the meteor shower hits."

Without even turning around, Lex spat out his resolute reply. "I'm going to find that stone, Chloe— even if it means dodging a few meteors in the process." Whirling around, he grabbed onto her once again as he muttered, "You're coming with me." Chloe tried to protest, but she didn't know what hit her.

"No, please, Lex—I don't know what you're talking about. Honestly—" She attempted to twist her wrist around so that her thumb faced the break between his fingertips and his thumb, a tactic she knew could allow her to pull free from his hold, but his grasp was too strong. She struggled harder, digging her feet into the floor as he strode quickly down the hallway, but her feet slipped on the polished floor, and she slid along behind him. They passed by a man with sunglasses and a suit, obviously one of the guards of the Luthor mansion. In a moment of panic, Chloe screamed out, "HELP! He's kidnapping me, call the police, do something!" But apparently the man only listened to Lex, for he moved about as much as the Queen's guards in England.

At last they emerged into the sunlight, Chloe still fiercely trying to escape his grip. Lex, maintaining his speed despite her protests, used his free hand to extract a key from his pocket. He hit a button, and the lights on a silver Porsche flashed once. "Lex, will you let go of me? What are you doing, are you crazy?" But Lex merely opened the passenger side door and shoved Chloe in, slamming it shut behind her. An instant later, he was in the driver's seat revving the engine and then pulling away with the squealing of tires.

"Where are we going?" Chloe asked, her voice much more timid now that they were hurtling along the highway at least forty miles over the speed limit. She quickly grabbed her seatbelt and buckled herself into the speeding car. Her back was pressed into her chair as she stared ahead at the road careening by. But Lex didn't answer her. There was a maniacal gleam in his eye that reminded her too much of when he'd had his psychotic break. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, and Chloe felt her stomach do a flip-flop as the car gave a whine and the speedometer crept up to 100 mph… 105… 110…

As Chloe's eyes became transfixed on the slinking speedometer, she heard a deafening crash somewhere to her right. Her head swiveled to her window and she saw an immense black cloud rising from what was surely a newly formed crater. Turning her wide eyes back to the windshield, she watched as a streak of orange light cascaded through the sky and exploded on the road several hundred feet ahead of them in a burst of flame and debris. "Slow down, Lex, slow down!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Lex swerved hard to the left, retaining his speed, the car bouncing along on the grassy field as they drove straight into a black cloud. Blinded for the moment, Chloe gripped the edges of her seat so hard that she was sure her knuckles would break off. _Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit_, her mind shouted as her heart pounded so hard against her chest she thought her ribcage would explode.

At last they emerged from the darkness and veered back onto the road. Chloe swallowed down the urge to vomit and relaxed her grip on the seat, squeezing her eyes shut at the near-fatal meteor strike. She didn't open them until she felt the car lurch as it screeched to a sudden halt. Blinking her eyes open, she looked around and saw that they had arrived at the most unexpected place; the caves. Confused and curious, Chloe sat there, unmoving. She jumped as the slam of a car door met her ears, and she looked up to see Lex striding around the front of the car and over to her side. She pushed away the urge to shrink back further into the seat and instead regained her composure and sat up defiantly. Lex swung open her door. "Get out," was all he said.

Chloe obediently unbuckled her safety belt and stepped out of the car as Lex slammed the door behind her. Without bothering to grab hold of her arm again, he led her in the direction of the caves. She followed, much more calm and subdued after having seen her life flash before her eyes in the blast of the meteor. Her gaze traveled up to the sapphire sky, which was punctuated with white streaks from falling meteors in the distance, the sky raining fire. The sun glowed brilliantly, enhancing the shadows cast on the ground. A light breeze was drifting through Smallville as if the wind hadn't yet been informed that there was a terrible natural disaster plaguing the town. The fresh air felt good on Chloe's face as it rustled her short blonde hair and blew several strands across her eyes. Then the two of them stepped through the entrance and found themselves down in the dank, eerie dimness of the caves.

"Why do I have the feeling we're not in this cave for cover?" Chloe snipped, feeling some of her old confidence return to her.

"You know as well as I do," Lex responded ambiguously. Then, throwing his arms up as he continued to walk ahead of her, he declared, "It's the epicenter!"

"Of what!"

"Come on, Chloe. You're the town purveyor of all things unexplained. You know damn well about this cave and the stones," he snapped back at her.

"Lex, what's wrong with you?" Chloe felt her confidence waver at the look in his eyes. He seemed maddened, on the brink of insanity… He came right up in front of her, his twisted face inches from hers.

"If you didn't break into my library, you know who did. Who are you trying to protect?" he accused.

"No one," Chloe replied defensively.

"Is it Clark?"

"Clark?" Chloe felt her heart skip a beat. How did he know? What all did he know about Clark, anyway? Gulping down her fear, she continued as if she had no idea what he was talking about. "Of course not. What does Clark have to do with any of this?"

"You tell me. You've known Clark a lot longer than I have. In fact," Lex paused for a very brief moment, his eyes gleaming, "you might know him better than anyone."

Chloe felt her stomach tighten. _How the hell does he know all this?_ But her inner panic flowed out through her mouth in the form of defiance as she lied yet again. "You're right, Lex, I do. And the Clark Kent that I know would be the last person to go super-thief on your library for some stupid piece of rock." Pleased with the sincerity of her lie, Chloe sighed inwardly, praying that Lex would believe her. But instead of responding to her little speech, his gaze traveled to a break in the wall that was filled with golden light.

"What is that?" he mumbled as he stepped closer to it. Chloe's eyes nearly bulged out of her head. What had Lex said before? '_You know damn well about this cave and the stones_.' The cave… the stones… Clark… CLARK! Her stomach bottomed out as it suddenly dawned on her that they were not alone in the caves. There were a million possible explanations for the strange light, but for some reason only one surfaced in her mind, and that told her that she had to stop Lex from finding out what was creating that light.

"Lex, be careful, it might be dangerous!" she called out and then dashed up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulders and smashing him as hard as she could against a nearby rocky wall. His bald head connected with the stone, and his body fell limply to the ground. _Wow, I'm really on a roll today,_ Chloe thought sarcastically before she lifted her head to examine the light for herself. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.

Her assumptions were confirmed, but she was even more confused now than she had been previously. She could see the familiar bulky form of Clark, but he looked like he was in pain, and he was hard to see through the glare. What she did not see was Lex slowly standing up behind her, eyeing the light with fascination and shock. Then the slightly blue-tinged light began rocketing outwards. Being the closer of the two, Chloe received the worst of the explosion.

A brilliant, blinding, resplendent blast of light exploded through the cave with energy so fierce that it shook the walls as it flared outwards in all directions. Instinctively, Chloe's arms flew up to shield her face as she was swept clear off her feet and into the rough wall behind her. There she was pinned, her feet dangling into nothingness, for a fraction of a second— the light, like the gust of a hurricane, holding her chest; the jagged, ancient wall supporting her back. Her right hand was out the furthest, still attempting to protect her vulnerable face. It felt like the light were searing her palm, burning it as if a torch were being applied to the skin.

_A torch. How ironic._

When the infinitesimal yet infinite moment ended, the light receded and Chloe was dropped like a rag doll onto the ground. Her forehead came into contact with solid rock, and with a sharp crack she was out cold.

The black nothingness melted away like chocolate in a microwave. The world spun for a moment before solidifying into the metallic room. The nothingness reformed itself into the shape of the Table, which sat adamantly in the center of the room. The Table. Chloe gave an involuntary shiver. The guards stood on either side of her, still gripping her arms, and began pulling her into the center of the room. Hopeless dread ached in the pit of her stomach, and Chloe felt her eyes burn with tears. Not the Table. Only bad things happened on the Table.

Then the two guards lifted her up and slid her into position on the Table. The shiny silver metal froze her bare arms and legs. Her head was placed into the small cavity at one end of the long sheet of metal, and her ankles and wrists were secured by curved metal bars that clasped into place so that she could not escape. A similar curved strip of metal was paced over her forehead, locking her head down in the cavity. It no longer hurt her scar. Her body trembled. Ice. The table felt like ice. Her bare toes curled into her feet for warmth that she didn't have.

"Chloe," came the voice. She had been expecting it, but it froze her even more than the bitter table. Tap, scuff, tap. His damn designer shoes. He came right up next to her and bent down over the Table. Chloe impulsively closed her right hand into a fist. He caught the motion and grinned. "That's exactly what I wanted to talk about today." Chloe closed her eyes. It had happened several weeks ago or so, some time into her stay in the little square room. Why did He want to talk about it now? Blinking her eyes open, she allowed her gaze to roll over in His direction.

"What happened to your hand, Chloe?" He began smoothly, folding His arms casually. "Why would you do something like that?"

But Chloe said nothing. She merely stared at Him, her gaze lifeless and dull. Gray.

He frowned, becoming vexed. He ran a hand over His face and wiped His mouth with His open palm. Sliding His hand back into His pocket, He continued with forced calm. "Chloe, I need you to talk to me. You know what happens when you don't tell me the truth." As if to prove His point, He strode over to the table filled with equipment on one end of the room and picked up a large, lethal looking syringe filled with a bright emerald liquid. Chloe's eyes followed it, but her vision was blurring with unshed tears. He walked back over to the Table and held it up right in front of Chloe's face. "Yeah. Recognize this?" He turned it over carefully, allowing her to survey it as if it were a prized piece of gold. "I suggest you start talking."

Chloe cleared her parched throat and found her low, scratchy voice that was so rarely used now. "Moment of madness," she mumbled in explanation for what she had done. A small part of her wanted to add with a sneer, _'Surely you've had some of those yourself, or did you forget your stay at the asylum?'_ But that part of her was growing smaller by the day, dying a slow and painful death. She hadn't the energy for biting sarcasm, let alone merely opening her mouth and spitting out more than three words at a time.

"That's all? You plead temporary insanity?" His eyes drifted over to her clenched fist. "There was no motivation behind such a specified attack?" Chloe was silent. He held up the syringe.

"No," she coughed.

He stared at her for a moment, His eyes like two blackened coals. He went back over to the table of equipment and set the syringe down. When He returned, oddly enough, He had a piece of paper and a pen. Removing the metal bars from her wrists and head, he shoved her into a sitting position and placed the pen and paper on her legs. "Sign your name."

Chloe stared. The paper was blank. Sign her name? Three months ago, her clever brain would have picked up on his little game. But her mind was dead now. Lifeless and gray. She lifted the pen with her right hand and scratched down a warped signature. She hadn't written in months, and her hand still twinged a bit from time to time. He watched, a look on His face that said she was satisfying His hunger. He snatched the paper from her and crumpled it up as she lay back down on the metal again, lacking the strength to remain in a sitting position without support.

"I think Atticus Finch would agree that you're right-handed," He told her, the corners of His mouth twitching up into a malicious grin. "So if you were right-handed, wouldn't you have automatically picked the pole up with your right hand?" He stepped closer to her, bending low over her face and whispering into her ear, "Or are you ambidextrous?"

He waited for an answer, but He didn't receive one. Cool as the icy metal of the Table, He strolled back over to the equipment table, grabbed the syringe, and brought it back over to the center of the room. "You have five seconds to give me an answer." Chloe's breathing became heavy and labored as she stared at the syringe. But she didn't say anything. He glanced at His Rolex watch, eyeing the second hand as it ticked away. Five seconds. "Time's up."

Holding her arm in place, He inserted the long needle into her forearm and emptied the bright green contents into her veins. Chloe let out an agonized howl as her body convulsed, the searing pain ripping through her arm and into her other limbs. Her head, no longer held down by the metal bar, twisted back and forth in an effort to escape the pain but only met the sharp edges of the round cavity. Her wail echoed off the metallic walls, ringing through the room like a siren, reverberating off the walls and returning to her ears, to her pain-wracked body, to the empty shell that once enclosed the fiery spirit of Chloe Sullivan.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for the replies. I'd like to warn you that not all of the cliffhangers at the end of the season finale are dealt with in this story (namely Lana's). This is a story about Chloe and, eventually, Clark.**

_Chapter Two_

It wasn't hard to remember the first time she was on the Table. Everything had looked exactly the same in the room, spotless and immaculately clean. But before she had even gotten to the room, she had been pacing around back and forth in her own little square room, her mind running a mile a minute. She hadn't even heard the sound of footsteps until they had arrived at the door, unlocked it, and stepped through the threshold. Whirling around, she saw the two guards striding boldly across the room in her direction and placed her hands on her hips.

"Well, if it isn't Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum," she spat out savagely. "I suppose you two lackeys aren't here to bust me out, are you?" The guards ignored her and grabbed onto her arms, pulling her toward the door. Chloe put up a terrific fight— she kicked with all her might, yanked her arms, screamed obscenities, and even tried to dig her heels into the slippery floor to no avail. "Let go of me!" she shouted as they dragged her down the hallway. "Let go of me, damnit!"

The guards paid her no mind as they entered the large room. Chloe stopped struggling when her eyes fell upon the fascinating sight before her: a shining metal table with restraints. Realization dawned on her instantly, and she started kicking again as they pulled her closer to the table in the center of the room. Her fruitless efforts began to cease as exhaustion took over her body from the struggle. The guards snapped the metal bars shut over her wrist and ankles and then moved to her head. As the metal bar was jammed over her forehead, a stab of pain shot through her flesh.

_Crap. That damn cut from the cave,_ she recalled. Clearly it was not healed yet, and her accommodating host did not care.

The guards moved back to their position just outside the doorway, and the soft tapping of designer shoes echoed through the room. Since she couldn't move her head, Chloe rolled her eyes all the way to one side in order to see the man striding coolly up to her. His bald head was nearly as shiny as the chrome all around her, and he was clad rather sharply in a black suit and tie, his onyx designer shoes scuffing softly on the floor as he walked.

"Chloe Sullivan," he uttered calmly.

"What the hell do you want, Lex?" she hissed out his name, seething with newly enflamed anger at the mere sight of him. She didn't care that he had total power over her or that she was strapped into a table and utterly helpless. Her insides were burning with rage, and she wanted nothing more than to be able to vent at him, swear at him, scream at him.

"Now Chloe, I thought we already established who asks the questions around here," Lex replied in mock innocence. "By the way, I hope you're comfortable." He smiled at her maliciously. God, how she hated him. "I've brought you here because I think it's time I start getting some answers out of you. You see, I've developed something rather ingenious, and I thought this would be the most opportune time to test it out," he began explaining as if he were speaking with a business associate.

"Lex, despite what you may think, I don't give a damn about your 'ingenious development.' " Chloe scoffed.

"Really?" Lex retaliated, his voice dripping with mock sweetness. He strolled over to a table on the far end of the room and returned with a large syringe full of bright green liquid. "I think you're going to like this one." He held it up in front of her face so that she had no choice but to look at it. "I've created a solution with minute traces of poison residue enhanced with refined, liquefied meteor rock. The poison reacts with the meteor rock in such a way that it no longer become lethal. However, once inserted into the blood stream, the solution is transported throughout the body and causes extreme pain for anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes. Unfortunately, I still have yet to test it out on a human for accurate results."

Chloe eyed the syringe carefully, trying to discern whether he was bluffing just to get her to tell him what he wanted. "Well, Lex, why don't you stick that needle up your ass and get your results first hand?"

Lex gave a low, amused laugh. "I think I have a better test subject. But I'll certainly think about your suggestion." He turned around for a moment, collecting his thoughts. Chloe imagined herself plunging that huge needle into the back of his bald head. "Chloe," Lex began again as he turned around to face her. "It occurs to me that you said you know Clark better than anyone, correct?"

Chloe remained silent.

"If this is indeed the case, which I certainly assume it is, then I have some questions for you. If you answer them, then this—" he waved the syringe, "—won't go anywhere near you. But if you don't, then you will be the proud first test subject to what I believe is the most painful poison ever to grace the black market." He paused, allowing this to sink in. Chloe tried not to show that her heart was hammering wildly against her ribcage.

"Now, Chloe," he continued. "I've seen Clark do some rather… extraordinary things, shall we say." Lex grinned to himself. "And I know that you are quite aware of his unique abilities. After all, the ceiling in my lab fell on both of you, and somehow you came out without a scratch."

Chloe's eyes widened.

"Yes, so you remember that, too. Don't tell anyone, but after me, myself, and I were all nice and merged back into one, I had some interesting recollections. I didn't quite remember everything, but I got the gist of what occurred with my better half."

_Oh God. Oh shit. He knows. He knows. Oh crap, he KNOWS!_

"Now, there's one question that has been plaguing me for quite some time now. In my four years of knowing Clark, there is something about him that I could never explain, no matter how many times I tried to blame it on meteor rocks. Clark is different… special, shall we say. What I want to know is… where did he come from?" Lex had a faraway look in his eyes as he strolled across the room. Then he turned back to Chloe, fully aware of the reality around him. "Where is he from, Chloe? Just answer me that for now. Where did Clark Kent come from?"

"I- I don't know. Smallville, I guess," Chloe stammered, her confidence shrinking away like rainwater falling through a drain.

Lex held up the syringe again. "Now, Chloe, the truth would be quite helpful. I wouldn't want you to have to be the first to experience this untested poison. It's a simple question, really. I'm sure you know the answer. Where did Clark come from?"

"Lex, I really don't know! I-I'm telling the truth!" Chloe felt her lungs constrict as her voice cracked with fear. _No, this is not a good time to panic!_ "I swear I don't know! I don't know where he's from!"

Lex bent down right over her and screamed in her face, "TELL ME WHERE HE'S FROM!"

"I don't know! I don't know where! Please— don't— I don't know where, I don't know where, I don't know!" Chloe sobbed, tears leaking down the sides of her face as she shouted back at him, praying that he would believe what she said.

"YOU KNOW WHERE— TELL ME, CHLOE! TELL ME THE TRUTH!"

Chloe let out an agonized scream. "I SWEAR! I don't know! I don't know where, I swear, I SWEAR!"

With a growl of frustration, Lex stabbed the needle into Chloe's forearm. Instantly, pain ripped through her body like she had never before known. If felt as if gasoline had been pumped through her veins and then set aflame— it felt as if a thousand knives were tearing at her flesh as she bled and bled and bled— it felt as if her whole body were being smashed to pieces, sewn back together, and then ripped apart again. Oh God, she couldn't stand it… the pain was unbearable.

Chloe let out another deafening wail of agony that echoed through the room. Words spilled from her mouth in a mixture of shouts and sobs as tears flowed freely from her eyes. She wailed one word that was impossible to understand over the horrible echoing of room before her eyes rolled back in her head and, unable to take the pain, she allowed the darkness to take over.

She blinked as the memory faded. She was in the little square room. The guards had taken her there after the torture session with Lex. He had wanted to know what happened to her hand… She looked down at the scars and then turned it over so that her palm was facing the ground and she couldn't see it. It was a miracle that He hadn't seen her palm that first time on the Table, for she hadn't thought to hide it until the incident.

The room was deathly quiet, but she could still hear her own echoing screams mixed with His infuriated shouts in her mind from her memory of the first time on the Table. That was also the first time with the green syringe. It was a memory filled with horrible firsts.

Chloe turned her hand over again and examined the scar. She thought of how her palm used to look. She thought of what had happened in the cave. Yet it was difficult— she felt as if her brain had been melted after having been in the little square room for so long. Thinking was difficult. Her thoughts came out all broken and jumbled, and it was hard to keep things straight. So she often let thoughts escape her, trying not to think as she stared ahead at nothing. But she forced herself to think now, to try and put the pieces together.

_A key. Somewhat. Not enough of a key to get everything. Just enough to get what I got. Know. Because of the stones. Together. The blast. Knowledge. A key. But not really a key._

Chloe closed her eyes, a dull ache of frustration welling within her. But as soon as it came, it was gone. There were no other emotions but emptiness, lifelessness, grayness. Emotions were a thing of the past. Now there was nothing.

Firsts. Terrible firsts. That's what the memory of the first time at the Table had been. Firsts. What had happened when she first came to the lab, first arrived in her little square room? That she could remember, too. So instead of forcing more thoughts upon herself, she merely let herself sink back into another memory, let the gray walls of the little square room dissolve into the visions of the past…

Her eyes opened blearily, and slowly the world came into focus. Everything was fuzzy and distorted for a moment… Where was she? The cold floor she lay on was bleak and gray… In fact, all four walls that surrounded her were gray as well. Her head throbbed, and she placed a hand to the gaping wound in her forehead. If she crinkled her forehead, she could feel dried blood. Lovely. But there were more pressing matters at hand… like, where was she? Just where on earth was she?

Chloe decided to try and push herself to her feet. She managed to get up on wobbly legs and had to clutch the wall for support. She felt slightly woozy. _Probably from that stupid cut in my head,_ she thought bitterly. When she had attained a standing position, she began to survey her surroundings again. _Where in the world am I?_

No matter. There was a door. _Okay then, I'm getting the hell out of here. And if I find the person who put me here, I'll kick his ass and do an expose on him and his little kidnapping charades._ Imagining the headline for that, Chloe cheered up considerably and proceeded to make her way in the direction of the door. She tried to turn the handle— but it was locked. She tried again, jiggling it fiercely. But it wouldn't budge.

_Damnit, Sullivan, just how stupid can you be? If someone kidnaps you, he's obviously not going to leave the door unlocked…_

She closed her eyes and sighed, trying to push down the rising panic. There was no need to panic. She could get out of there. It was just a temporary setback. She'd been locked in rooms before. She'd even been locked in a fake school before with the threat of being turned into the next exhibit at the wax museum. This was no problem. She was just locked in a little room. A little gray room. Certainly, no problem at all…

But her sanity broke for a moment, and she turned and started to pound on the door, peering out the small window to see if anyone happened to be walking through the adjacent hallway. "HELP ME!" she screamed, banging her fists repeatedly against the door. "Somebody! Help me!" After several moments, she calmed down and stopped banging on the door. Turning around, she allowed her back to slide down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.

_I just have to think rationally. There's got to be another way out of here._ Chloe stood up and began to pace the room, glancing up at the door every so often in hopes that it would magically spring open. But it didn't, and pacing was only making her more nervous. Her heart was pounding in her chest like a drum roll, and her breath was heavy and uneven. She placed both of her hands on top of her head and looked around, wondering what to do now.

As she stood there in silence, she heard an odd tap, scuff, tap sound coming from the hallway. She watched the door warily, half excited and half terrified of what might appear in the doorway. A key turned in the lock, and the door swung open to reveal a mercifully familiar face.

"Oh, Lex! Thank God!" Chloe cried out. She momentarily forgot her anger and fear towards him after his crazy stunt of dragging her to the caves in light of seeing someone she knew in this frighteningly alien environment.

_Alien._ Chloe almost cringed at her own choice of wording.

"So, where are we, and when can we get the hell out of here?" she continued, relief still washing over her. Lex grinned oddly at her, and a chill ran down her spine.

"We're in my new lab in Metropolis, if you must know. And _I_ can leave anytime I like. You, on the other hand…" Lex smirked again. "You've been given an indefinite stay in my hospitable facility."

Chloe gulped, not quite liking the sound of that. "Lex, what are you talking about? Why are we here?"

The latter chuckled. "We were both knocked out after that explosion in the cave for quite some time. You were still unconscious when I came to, so I decided that it would be for the best if I rounded you up and took you here. Nice place, isn't it?" He looked around, admiring the pristine condition of his futuristic new toy.

"I don't understand… why am I here?" Chloe ventured, becoming more unsettled by the gleam in Lex's eye with every passing minute.

"You're here to give me answers that no one else can," Lex replied ambiguously. "And I think that I should be the one doing all the questioning around here, if that's all right with you."

"Lex, stop it. This is crazy. I'd like to go home now," Chloe said slightly more forcefully than she had initially intended.

"You're not going anywhere. You're going to stay here until I get what I want. And if you don't cooperate…" Lex strode into the room and adjusted Chloe's shirt collar. "That might be a very, very long time.

Disturbed by the tone of Lex's voice, Chloe tried to pull away. She glanced behind him at the open door and without thinking made a run for it. She nearly made it to the door but Lex grabbed her around the shoulders and yanked her back harshly, and she landed painfully on her back. She started to fight against his grip, trying to escape. But he was too strong for her and held her in place, sneering humorously at her pointless struggle. "You're not going anywhere, Chloe," he whispered harshly in her ear. "You've become my new favorite project."

Chloe felt anger and fear burn wildly inside of her as she tried to sit up. But Lex had her pinned to the floor and was nearly on top of her, and she could not move. "But—WHY? Why me?"

Lex grabbed her by the shoulders and banged her head against the hard, smooth floor. She saw stars for a moment, pain ripping through the back of her head. "No more questions. You just give me the answers," he muttered fiercely.

"The answers to what?" _He can't be talking about… no, no, definitely not, how could he possibly know? He can't mean… can he?_

But Lex didn't reply. He merely let go of Chloe and made his way to the open doorway. Chloe stood up and stayed where she was, knowing it would be no use to try and bolt past Lex. The corners of his mouth tugged up into a horrible leer, and his eyes gleamed as he had his last words. "Welcome home, Chloe."

Then he turned and closed the door behind him. The metallic click of the door being locked met her ears, and Chloe could do nothing but stare at it, dumbfounded, for several long moments. When the numbness and shock faded away, a terrible dread filled her gut. She was trapped. Literally trapped. There was no way out. She began pacing back and forth again, her breath coming out to the beat of her hurried, nervous footsteps and fluttering heart. Trapped. Trapped in this little square room. This little, square, gray room. Trapped.

She became more hysterical by the minute as she began wondering what was happening out in the world. What had happened to Clark? Was Smallville in ruins, or was the meteor shower still going on? How much time had passed already? Was Lois looking for her? What had ever happened to Lana?

As the questions continued building, she felt more and more cut off from society. A feeling of utter loneliness fell upon her, choking her as she paced back and forth, back and forth in the grayness of the room. Gray.

At last, she could stand it no longer, and her nerves shattered like an exploding mirror. Falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands, she let out a long, tormented, agonized scream of defeat.


	4. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

"Chloe?"

She blinked. Her memory was swept away from her eyes like dust with a broom. She was in the present now. For a moment, her heart leapt into her throat as she saw that her surroundings were dismal and somewhat gray… but then she remembered where she was. It was good to know where she was, comforting or not.

"Chloe?" the voice asked again, gently. Like a cool ocean breeze.

She didn't respond. Her mouth felt desiccated, as always. Her eyes burned. It felt like she had been crying. Yes, she could feel the dried tears on her cheeks. But she merely stared straight ahead, trying to bring herself completely into reality. There was darkness in the corners of her eyes, telling her that she could slip into a vivid memory at any time. She didn't look at the source of the voice. She stared ahead, straight ahead, staring, staring, seeing nothing.

"Chloe, talk to me. What happened to your hand?"

The words were faint, but she turned her right hand over anyway so that the palm was facing up towards the ceiling. The scars were deep and visible. She stared blankly down at the palm, feeling lost and shrunken. How had this happened? How… no wait, she remembered. She knew how that happened.

"Please, Chloe. You never told me what happened to your hand."

The darkness in the corners of her eyes began to advance, clouding her already obscured and surreal vision of the world. It blew before her, like a black cloud, shrouding the room from view. When the smoke cleared, she was in the room with the Table. But she wasn't on the Table anymore. The two guards were dragging her to the doorway, and He had already left the room. She knew that she was being taken back to the little square room again. Panic and frustration welled up inside of her, and she did the only thing that had become natural to her during her stay there.

She screamed.

The guard to her left, not having expected such a shrill, piercing sound to permeate his ear, lost his grip for a moment and sent the left side of Chloe's body tumbling to the hard floor. The other guard held fast to her right wrist as she continued to scream, holding her right hand in a fist.

"What the hell? Shut her up, will ya?" the guard that had let go ordered in a deep voice.

"What do you want me to do?" the second guard replied scornfully. "Why don't you go get a sedative from that table over there?"

The guard who had let go strode over to the equipment table and stared down at it, looking too afraid to touch anything. Chloe was finding it hard to keep up her deafening, ringing note; her throat felt like it was tearing from the sheer volume. She wasn't sure exactly why she was doing it— perhaps to stall for time. Perhaps the answer would come to her if only she could keep screaming.

"Aw, shit. I can't find nothin' in this mess. Ya wanna c'mon over here and gimme a hand?" the guard called over to the one that still had a hold on Chloe's wrist. Mumbling about the first guard not being able to do anything properly, he dragged Chloe by the arm over to the table. It felt like her shoulder was about to pop out of its socket, which only incited her to scream louder.

This was it. They were at the equipment table. Chloe looked up at the many gadgets there, praying that she could find something useful if only she could sit up and see over the top. Luckily, the first guard knocked something over and it shattered on the floor.

"What's the matter with you? Luthor will kill us both!" the second guard shouted, and—miraculously—he let go of Chloe's arm. The latter stood up slowly behind him, pulling herself onto wobbly legs as she quickly surveyed the table. Neither of the guards seemed to take notice that she had stopped screaming. There really was a ton of junk on there, that was for sure. Spare parts for different machinery were strewn over the top haphazardly. The closest thing to her was a metal pipe. She grabbed it hastily, not sure why, and stuffed it up her pant leg to hide it. With a glance over to the guards to make sure they still weren't paying attention, she grabbed the green syringe and without hesitation plunged the needle into the nearest guard's back.

Loud hollering filled the room as the man bent forward and collapsed onto his knees, pain engulfing him. Chloe wrenched the needle out of his back and turned to the other guard, who eyed it warily. Feeling in control for the first time in several weeks, Chloe darted forward, wielding the huge syringe, and swung it down onto the raised arm of the other man. The need inserted into his flesh and created a great gash as he tried to pull it away. Blood dribbled down his arm as he, too, doubled over in agony, his shouts soon joining those of the other guard. Dropping the syringe on the floor, Chloe bent down and grabbed the keys from the pocket of the first guard. Then she turned and stumbled over to the door, limping slightly because of the pole in her right pant leg, which forced her leg straight like a splint. She wasn't sure why she still had it with her, but having a weapon felt good, so she allowed it to slow her down slightly as she hurried to the doorway.

Yes—yes—she was almost there! Freedom was nearly upon her. She arrived at the door and began inserting random keys, trying to find the one that would open the door. The guards continued to groan behind her, too absorbed by the pain to notice her escape. At last she stuck a small silver key into the lock and turned it—yes! She turned the handle and wildly threw the door open, taking one hurried step out into the hallway.

But the corridor was blocked by an infuriated bald man in a black suit. Chloe felt her stomach bottom out and heard the distant tinkle of keys hitting the solid floor after they slipped from her slack grip. He stared at her, fire in His eyes, and then grabbed her by the shirt collar and pulled her up close to His face. "Where do you think you're going?" He muttered menacingly before dragging her back to her little square room and chucking her inside, locking the door hastily.

His footsteps faded away in the distance, and Chloe crumpled to the floor, conquered, her eyes burning once again with tears. She had been so close, so close! She tried to curl up her legs into a ball, but her right leg was uncomfortably straight. Reaching into her pant leg, she discovered the pipe. A split second of anger ignited inside of her, and she chucked the pipe as hard as she could across the room. It clanged loudly on the wall, and the sound echoed and echoed and echoed…

She found that her right hand was balled into a fist again. Flattening it out, she gazed down upon her palm, down at the three symbols etched into her skin, and realized how lucky she had been that He hadn't seen them. If He saw them, all hope was lost; He would know that she was somehow connected to the stones… the caves… Clark…

Clark. The thought of him made her body heave a sob. Why hadn't he come to save her yet? He was always there when she needed him. Now she needed him more than ever. Only he wasn't there. He wasn't coming to save her. She looked down at her palm again, wanting nothing more than to see Clark's face again, to know that everything would be all right. But she didn't know if it would be all right. She didn't know if anything would ever be all right again.

Yet maybe there was a way to stop Him from finding how about Chloe's palm… maybe… Her eyes turned up to where the pipe had fallen on the floor, and an idea lit up in her mind. She crawled over the smooth floor until she came to the pipe, which she automatically picked up in her right hand—after all, she was right-handed. But she switched it over to her left hand, feeling the cool tube against her skin, feeling the power to destroy the evidence in the palm of her hand.

Her breath quickened. She had never done anything to harm herself before, not intentionally and consciously. She sat up straight, bracing herself, lifting the tip of the pipe into the air. Her right hand was open, palm facing up, and lying steadily on the gray floor. With one huge breath and a leaping of her heart into her throat, she thrust the pipe downward. The tip connected with her palm sharply, and she quickly pulled it along the skin, consumed by the horrible sensation of her flesh being scraped off. Scarlet liquid oozed from her hand. She didn't feel it because of the rare adrenaline pumping through her body. Lifting the pipe, which was now bloody at the tip, she forced it down onto her palm again, scraping away more skin and leaving it clotted at the end of the pipe. When she was done, her palm began to throb, and she looked down at it.

Feeling slightly sick with the image of her bloody, mutilated hand, she dropped the pipe to her left and leaned back against the wall, taking in deep breaths and trying not to vomit. Her hand stung and ached, but the symbols had been erased. Chloe gave a sigh of relief and closed her eyes, drifting in and out of consciousness.

The next thing she knew, she was being jerked awake by the loud bang of a door swinging open and clanging loudly against the wall. She blinked the blurriness from her eyes and found Him standing in the doorway, His mouth set in a straight line as He attempted to prevent rage from pouring out over the floor and setting fire to the entire room. He looked as if He wanted to run in there and scream at Chloe, but He didn't move.

"I hope you realize the damage you have inflicted upon my two most faithful and hardworking guards, not to mention the destruction of some very valuable equipment, " He spat through clenched teeth. Hands clasped loosely behind His back, He began to stroll calmly into the room. The door was still wide open. Chloe's eyes flickered to the opening in the wall, a deep longing welling within her. He noticed and looked over in the direction of the door. "You want to try running again?" He asked softly, bending down close to her ear. "Go ahead. Run." Chloe didn't move. "No?" He stood up, striding over to the door and gently closing it, seeming to have conquered His rage. "Wise choice. I have a guard on duty at all hours now. If you try to run, he has permission to shoot you."

Chloe felt her heart skip a beat and was momentarily startled that she still had a heart, and it was indeed still beating. She thought she had died long ago.

"So, Chloe," He began again, returning to the matter at hand. "You had a little fun in my lab earlier today, didn't you?" His eyes began dancing around the room as if searching for some kind of sign of Chloe's wrongdoings. Instead, all He found was a lone pipe lying abandoned at the far end of the room. Oddly enough, one end of it was caked with dried crimson residue, which appeared to be blood. A look of curiosity overcoming His face, He made his way over to the pipe and picked it up. "How did you get this?"

Chloe tried to keep her face impassive as she clenched her right hand into a fist. The wound throbbed harder when she did so, and she tried not to yelp out in pain as her fingernails dug into the freshly bleeding cuts. He strode back over to her and raised the pipe up, examining the tip. When His eyes turned back to Chloe, they lingered on the single drop of blood running down her wrist.

"Open your hand."

Chloe only clenched her fist tighter. More blood oozed out and fell into a small puddle on the sterile floor. He reached forward and easily forced her fingers open so that He could see the mangled pulp of her palm.

"Did you do this to yourself?" He questioned, His eyes never leaving her outstretched hand, which He held up so that He could assess the damage to the subject. Chloe gave a tiny, reluctant nod of affirmation. "And how did you get that pipe in here?"

Deciding that it was no use staying quiet, for it would only grant her some unwanted pain, she mumbled, "I took it from the other room."

"I surmised as much," He retorted coldly. "How did you get it in here without my noticing?"

"I hid it in my pant leg," she responded bluntly, dismally. Her voice echoed the quiet gloominess of the gray room.

Upon retrospect, she regretted saying that. She wished she had lied rather than told Him that she had used her clothing to hide a weapon. Because shortly thereafter, He took away her remaining dignity when He took away her clothes. She was given a flimsy, thin, white hospital gown that fell to her knees and had no sleeves; the back was only tied, so she constantly felt unwanted cold air on her back, which was partially revealed through the opening in the fabric. It was uncomfortable, and she longed for the familiar sensation of warm jeans against her thighs. But alas, they had taken everything—including her shoes—and she was left with even less clothing to protect her from the merciless cold. But at least He was satisfied now that she wouldn't have any place to stash a stolen weapon. All she had left was a thin papery gown, the scars on her hand, and the cold.

And, of course, He tried to pry from her lips why she had performed such a heinous act upon her own hand. She lied, of course, claiming that it was a moment of madness, that she had gone temporarily insane and had taken out her lunacy on her innocent hand.

_"That's all? You plead temporary insanity?" His eyes drifted over to her clenched fist. "There was no motivation behind such a specified attack?" Chloe was silent. He held up the syringe._

_"No," she coughed._

Then He had her sign her name.

"I think Atticus Finch would agree that you're right-handed," He told her, the corners of His mouth twitching up into a malicious grin. "So if you were right-handed, wouldn't you have automatically picked the pole up with your right hand?" He stepped closer to her, bending low over her face and whispering into her ear, "Or are you ambidextrous?"

True, Chloe had read To Kill a Mockingbird. Yet she hadn't realized His tactic until it was too late. After that, He became more suspicious as to why she wouldn't have held the pipe in her right hand if she were truly just taking out her anger in a moment of craziness. There was something more to it, and He knew that.

Only time would tell how much He could figure out.

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

"Chloe?"

The mist fell before her eyes; everything was hazy, as usual. She blinked, trying to diffuse the fogginess as she fought to remain in the present, in reality. The memories of destroying her hand were fading away, and when she looked down she now only saw the ridges of the scars disturbing the smoothness of her healed skin. That was all in the past. Lost in the cloudy, broken pieces and the grayness of the past.

"Chloe, why did you do it? Why did you hurt your hand like that?"

She must have been talking during the memory. Sometimes that happened. She must have murmured a few things, sparking the person's interest and concern. But she stared on, she stared on, into the fathoms of the room on the brink of reality. She opened her mouth.

"I had to protect the secrets," she whispered monotonously. Her eyes were unfocused. Her mouth was dry. Her mind teetered in the shadowy corners where memory and present blended together to form a cruel, distorted, dreamlike world.

"What secrets?" The voice was calm. Soothing. Warm.

Chloe leaned forward, completely present and aware of reality for a brief moment, to the person seated at the other end of the table. "The secrets of the cave."


	5. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

It was difficult to remember what life had once been like, before she had been swept away in such horrendous betrayal and locked up in a little square room with only the coldness to occupy her thoughts, the grayness to occupy her emotions. It felt like she had been there for her entire life. She glanced down at the scars on her palm after the memory of her first awakening in the lab had faded, her first realization that it had been Lex who had taken her there. She had only gotten back from the Table several hours ago, but it already felt like an eternity ago that He was asking about the scars on her hand, making her write her signature on the paper. She now lay on the floor, her left cheek pressed up against the sheet of iciness and her ear listening for sounds through the solid floor. All was quiet.

Chloe's bladder felt heavy. She sighed and tried not to move, but it was no use. She would have to take another trip to the bathroom. Frowning dismally at the floor, she pushed herself to her knees and half-crawled, half-stumbled to the door. When she arrived, she rapped her knuckles against it three times. The only good thing that came from His decision to place a guard by her door around the clock was that someone would always hear her, and she didn't have to wait for hours with crossed legs. A tan, hardened face appeared in the window before she heard the click of the lock being turned. The burly man opened the door to find her scrawny form kneeling rather pathetically on the floor before him. He had dark hair, a crew cut, which accentuated the darkness in his eyes.

"Bathroom," Chloe choked out in a whisper. The man stared down at her pitiful form with his dark eyes, a look of disgust on his face as he gazed at the helpless, disgraceful creature whimpering before him. With a grunt, he bent down and grabbed her by the arms, dragging her down the long corridor as her bare, knobby knees slid against the floor. An overwhelming feeling of weakness and vulnerability splashed over her before fading away, as her rare emotions always did, into the grayness of the surrounding walls. When they reached the bathroom, her knees were beginning to turn purple already; they bruised easily now that she had made this trip twice a day since she first came to the lab. Which was… how long ago? She couldn't remember.

This was her least favorite part of the trip, the part that made her want to crawl up into a ball in a corner of her little room and stay there forever. The man shoved her into the tiny, closet-sized space. Chloe knelt there on the floor for a moment, watching as the man stepped into the open doorway and turned his back to her—the most privacy she would get. It sickened her to sit on the porcelain throne knowing that the door was wide open and the man could turn around and leer at her if he so pleased. The exposure increased her feeling of defenselessness.

Positive that the man had his back turned completely to her, Chloe dragged herself to the toilet, pulled up her robe, and sat down. Her eyes met the gray floor despondently, not wanting to look up and see that there was a man standing mere feet from her. Then she pulled herself to the sink and forced her body to balance itself on her feet. Her legs wobbled unsteadily, not used to standing very often, and she grabbed hold of the edges of the sink to balance herself. There was a single bar of soap lying on the edge of the sink, which she grasped tightly in one hand while the other slowly loosened its grip on the sink.

Chloe scrubbed fiercely at her hands until they were covered in white foam. When she rinsed it off in the cool water, it was clear that her hands were slightly red and raw from the scrubbing. Reaching up, she felt her face and grimaced at the unclean feel of her own skin. Grasping the soap once again, she rubbed it over every inch of her face until she was covered with foam. Replacing the bar of soap on its ledge, she bent over and splashed water into her face, waking up for a moment and feeling slightly refreshed. Yet her feeling of cleanliness vanished when she put a hand to her hair. It felt greasy and stiff between her fingers, and she visibly cringed. The bar of soap was once again in her hand, only this time she was bending over and running the water through her hair as she soaped it up. The bar slipped easily from her fingers and bounced on the floor, sliding across it like a puck on an air hockey table. Rinsing and wringing out her hair, Chloe bent down and searched for the soap. When she found it, she put it back on the sink.

And then she succumbed. She did the one thing that she always tried to avoid doing when she went into the bathroom. This time, she had succeeded for a long time, managing to only look down into the sink. But she always did it, and this time was no exception.

Her eyes turned upward reluctantly, and she met her own gaze in the mirror. Instantly, she wished she hadn't. Her face was pale, gaunt, drawn—like a skeleton. Her hair was wet and scraggly, hanging in knotted tangles around her face and shoulders. It looked brown because of its soppiness and the grease that the soap couldn't wash away, even though she knew she was a natural blonde. The area around her eyes was blackish, making her eyes appear sunken in as they stared blankly into the grayness of the room. She could have scrubbed herself silly, but the darkness in her eyes could not be washed away.

It was clear that the guard was becoming annoyed with the extended duration of the trip to the bathroom, and Chloe didn't want him to become irritated with her lest he should "accidentally" turn around one of these times and shame her with humiliation at his sadistic stare. So Chloe let go of the sink and stumbled to the doorway. "I'm done," she whispered, sliding slowly back to her knees. The guard turned around and grabbed her once again, dragging her emaciated body along the floor until they arrived back at the square room. He dumped her inside like a used tissue and closed the door.

The sky. Chloe lay on her back for once, staring up at the terminable ceiling, and imagined that she was gazing into the starry depths of the fathomless night sky. It was difficult to picture merely for the fact that Chloe hadn't seen the sky since she had come to the lab. Where the stars actually shaped like stars, or were they just pinpricks of white light? No, golden light. Like the sun. Or were they? A sigh escaped her, and she wished that she had paid more attention to things when they were around her. She never believed that she would miss a simple thing like the sky so much—she'd always been too preoccupied with trying to get a good, juicy story to notice something as simple as the what the stars looked like on a warm summer evening.

Something else that eluded her was the sensation of grass on her bare skin. Since she was trying to picture the sky, she might as well try to imagine that she was lying out in the middle of a vast open field, the green grass stretching out on all sides of her until it met the edges of the great navy blue dome that was the sky. She closed her eyes, hoping that she could feel the grass if she blocked out the room around her. The grass. It was supposed to be shaggy and warm, tickling her bare skin as it brushed the soft blades. The grass…

But all she felt was the smooth, hard, cold floor beneath her. For one agonizing moment, she wished for nothing more than the feel of grass against her bare legs, but the pang of desire faded away, and she was left with the cold emptiness inside of her. She could not hope for things like that. Hope led to emotion, happiness, lightness. And that made it even more painful when all she felt was the solid, icy floor beneath her. If she obliterated emotion, hope… then there was no pain. There was only emptiness and a dull ache in the pit of her stomach that sometimes vanished into the nothingness that lived within her.

Grass, grass, focus on the grass! But it was too late. She had given up the whim of warm for the reality of cold, soft for hard, green for gray. The already evaporating whiff of fresh air disintegrated into the stale, oppressive chill within the room.

Thinking back, life in the lab wasn't terribly different to where she was now. Granted, she'd had no rights or freedom in the lab, and she'd been tortured and hurt emotionally and mentally, and she'd lain around in an enclosed room all day that was stifling yet somehow always so cold… That was all different now, of course. But the walls were still an odd tinge of gray, and life outside was still always a mystery to her. But there were windows here, in most of the rooms. Big windows where one could look out and actually see the sun's dazzling golden rays, feel its comforting warmth.

She sat at the table, thinking about that. Sometimes it was impossible to refrain from comparing the lab to life in this place. At times it seemed horribly similar, as if she had gone back in time and been forced to relive everything over and over… other times, it felt refreshingly different, like a complete reprieve. Someone was talking, but she didn't bother listening anymore. She had withdrawn into herself, into her turmoil of thought, into her wonder and awe and horror at the world around her. Often times it was hard to listen when there was so much to explore and discover simply by observing the world around her.

Yet there was still one thing that nagged at her, here in this place. True, the worst parts of the lab were nonexistent here, for which she was eternally grateful. But there was one thing that brought a melancholy feeling into her heart. Despite the great windows in some of the rooms, and despite the fact that she could see the sun, despite all that—she still didn't know what the grass felt like…

There had been one time, one brief moment in the middle of that weeklong window of opportunity between the past and present. It had been perhaps the most glorious moment of her life. Knowing that she shared a small apartment with her father and there was no lawn, she moseyed over to the Kent farm, breathing in the air and the colors and the feeling of being outside. She made it over to a field, clad in a shorts and a tank top, and slipped her sandals off her feet. Then she proceeded to lay down right in the middle of the grass, the cows grazing not far from where she lay.

In that instant, she knew. She knew what the grass really felt like, what the sky looked like when you're laying down and looking up at it, what the earth smelled like from such close proximity. She knew. And it occurred to her that the grass really was tickly, furry like a shag rug only better because it was nature, because it was the earth, because it was not man made but rather sprang organically from a virgin womb and into the fresh, bright world. She recalled a time when she would have stepped barefoot onto the grass and then instantly hopped off, thinking of all the miniscule bugs her feet were crushing and how her ankles itched uncomfortably, as if bugs were crawling on her. But she didn't care now. The grass was too good to bother her.

It was warm, too. The brilliant, fiery sun had been beaming down on it all day, allowing the green blades to drink up its light and grow while becoming pleasantly warm in the process. Warmth. It was like a thick, soothing feather pillow that she could cuddle close to her body and bring with her as she crawled into bed. It was like the smile that her father gave her when he was proud, or when he was affectionate, or when he wanted to show her that he loved her. It was like the leaping feeling in her gut whenever a friend acknowledged her with a grin or a hug or some words of appreciation. It was warmth—something she hadn't experienced since before the incident in the caves—and it felt good.

She turned her eyes up to the robin's egg blue sky that was punctuated by several puffy white clouds drifting lazily through its unblemished depths, which turned a faint orange or pink depending upon the angle in which the sun shined on them. For once, Chloe was at peace with the world, and the world was at peace with Chloe. She was not screaming at it in despair, blaming the world for her pains and sorrows and hating the world, wishing for it all to end. Now she couldn't get enough of the world, the glorious world, that had so much to offer which had been right under her nose, only she hadn't noticed. She'd been too wrapped up in all the little stresses of life to bother noticing the world around her. But she noticed it now—the grass on her bare skin, the warmth of the sun, the scent of fresh earth, the faint mooing of cows—and it felt good.

She could have stayed like that all day, absorbing the simple pleasure of lying in the grass, but her father had discovered where she had gone and had come to fetch her. He had taken her home. It had happened two nights later.

And after that, she felt the grass no more.

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

There was silence. The person just on the other side of the table had stopped trying to get across to her. There was sadness and disappointment creasing the person's face, but all hope was not lost. Chloe did not pay attention. She was too busy trying to figure out if she could recall the feeling of grass, too busy caught up in her memory of the warm green rug. She had fallen back into quiet submission in her memories after her mention of the caves, and there she now remained, pondering what had already passed.

"Do you remember that first night?" The person's soothing voice broke through the silence. Chloe blinked, pulling herself back through the white fog, trying to focus on the words that rippled through the air in waves of sound and pervaded her ears. "That first night that you were free again?"

Chloe blinked again. Free? Oh yes, she had the memory, but she could no longer remember the sensation. Like with the grass. The person watched her with intensely troubled eyes. She forced herself into the present for the moment so that she could look into them and try to understand the meaning of those distraught eyes.

"Chloe, do you remember?"

The latter gazed off into the distance once again and gave an uneven nod of verification. Then she parted her lips and breathed out, "I remember."

Her mind was drifting again, drifting back to that night. She glanced up once more, looking into the endearing yet burdened and quietly miserable face she had seen so many times before. Something in that look upon his solemn face compelled her to open her mouth again and acknowledge that she was aware of his presence, however fast her own was fading.

"I remember, Clark. I remember."


	6. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

Several unbearably long, monotonous days had passed since Lex had interrogated Chloe about the scar on her hand and the taunt of ambidextrousness. Like other days, she was sagging against the cold floor, shivering very slightly in the chill of the little square room and losing herself in the grayness all around her. Losing her soul to the emptiness around her, to the dull ache where her heart used to be. She lay there, left ear pressed against the cold smooth floor, drooping unfocused eyes staring up at the locked door.

She did not know if it was night or day. She never knew. She slept when the time seemed right and ate when the guard handed her a portion of food—the only point at which she could tell if it was morning or evening because of the type of food. It had been a few hours, though having felt like a few centuries, since she had eaten, and that had been some brown porridge. Her dinner. Thus, she knew that it was evening or perhaps some time into the night.

At last her tired eyes slipped shut, and she began drifting off to sleep. But she was jarred awake moments later by the voice of the guard just outside the doorway. It seemed he had shouted angrily to someone farther down the hallway. Chloe pushed her ear harder against the floor and listened attentively. There was a soft rumbling rush of what sounded like wind, and a split second later she could hear gasping, gagging sounds from just beyond the door. Someone was being choked.

Apprehension thundered in her roaring heartbeat as she lay there, panic-stricken, wondering what sort of battle was occurring just outside the little gray room. Something was slammed against the wall, and then she heard the muffled thump of a body sliding to the floor. She had no time to ponder upon the victor, for the doorknob began to turn, making a gentle clicking sound as it stopped on account of being locked. The person turned the handle again.

Only this time, there was a grinding sound of metal on metal as the force with which the knob was turned crushed the lock. The handle turned all the way, and the door swung open.

Chloe could do nothing but stare from her corner. The person was tall already, but from the floor he appeared to tower over everything, fierce and strong and determined. The first thing she noticed was the bulk and sheer height of the person entering the room. Then she adjusted her eyes and spotted the glaring blue plaid shirt, a trademark that she recognized only faintly. Then she saw his face.

And oh, how she recognized that face.

It was the face that had haunted her dreams for years, never giving her reprieve from its strength and beauty and sadness. It was the face she had looked upon for comfort, guidance, and friendship. It was the face she had looked upon with disgust, fury, and pain. Hovering above her for the moment frozen in time was the face that had caused so many emotions to well up within her like a gushing spring, a flowing waterfall. This was the face she admired when it was strong, pitied when it was burdened, hated when it was cruel. But most of all, it was the face she had cared for since her eyes came upon it. It was the face that she would always care for.

Only now… now she was empty. No emotions could explode within her heart. There was only emptiness. Grayness.

When time picked up again, Clark Kent dashed forward and bent down over Chloe. She could see that his eyes were tormented at the sight of her, his face a mask of despair. Without hesitation, the muscular arms reached out and lifted her tiny frame, raising her up into his body. Her head fell against his shirt, and it felt warm.

Warmth amid the cold. Security amid the fear. That was what he was. That was what he had always been, what the face truly meant to her.

Clark turned to the doorway and then stopped, glancing uneasily down at the frail object in his arms. Chloe stared up at him through dark-rimmed eyes and distantly recognized the flicker of discomfort in his face. And finally she spoke.

"You can run."

He looked puzzled at first, either not comprehending her words or too upset by the frailty in her voice to understand.

"Superspeed. I'll be fine." She silently congratulated herself for stringing together more than a few words and continued. "Just… get me the hell out of here."

Clark stared at her for a moment, fear and confusion warping his features. But then resolution took over, and he gave her a small, obedient nod. Chloe closed her eyes and heard a deafening rush of air in her ears. When it stopped a fraction of a second later, her head pounded with dizziness at the ride, and her eyes slipped open.

What she saw made her stomach bottom out.

They had not made it out. Clark had stopped, yes, but not because they were safe. He had stopped because of the terrible pain that was shooting through his body as he fought to stay on his feet and hold Chloe steady. She could see the weakness in his slightly green-tinged face before ripping her gaze away and spotting the source of his suffering.

He was there. He stood in front of them with a look of satisfaction upon His face, for in His hand was a rather large, chunky, green rock about the size of His head. It had a faint glow to it, which was odd for a rock but not at all uncommon to Chloe. Clark staggered backwards, fighting to maintain his grip on Chloe.

"Did you really think it would be that easy to escape?" He sneered with a short, derisive laugh. "Clearly I've overestimated your intelligence. I knew it was only a matter of time before the chivalrous knight in shining armor returned to his kingdom and came to rescue the damsel."

Clark was trembling slightly and clutching Chloe tightly as he tried to hold onto her. But he doubled over and fell to his knees, releasing her slightly. He gently lowered her to the floor, afraid of dropping her, and looked back up at his old friend. Chloe was too exhausted to protest, so she allowed her body to once again greet the cold surface that met her bare skin, and she looked back up at Clark.

"Lex… why are you doing this?" he gasped out, silently pleading for the noxious green rock to be taken away from him. Lex merely stepped closer, a small grin on His face as He relished the power that was given to Him by holding the meteor.

"For the good of mankind, of course," He replied, His voice slightly sarcastic. He stepped closer still, the rock's emerald luminosity brightening significantly as it came in closer proximity of its victim. Clark panted and let out a small grunt as he fell forward onto his elbows, bowing his head under the pain. "I have a feeling that you can give me answers to things I've only ever dreamed of questioning. Chloe hasn't been a terribly compliant subject—but you, Clark—well, I don't see how you could possibly defy me with this rock in my hand."

Clark gasped again as a wave of pain overcame him, and Chloe watched helplessly as his face screwed up in agony. She felt a rush of life invigorate her as her heart welled up with emotions, and she knew that she had to get up. With His cruel, beady eyes focused on Clark, she was able to sit up without drawing attention to herself. Now came the hard part. She forced herself up onto wobbly legs, stumbling out of His peripheral vision so that He wouldn't spin around and drive her back to the floor. But He was so engrossed in the power at His fingertips that He had no idea she was even in the room.

Taking a breath, Chloe threw herself forward at Him, wrenching the rock out of His unsuspecting grip and toppling over onto Him as they both collapsed. With one last effort, as her body fell to the floor on top of Him, she chucked the meteor rock as hard as her deteriorating arm muscles would let her. It arced gracefully through the air, the green glow diminishing as it flew, and landed with an echoing crack on the hard tile across the room. Drained, Chloe fell forward limply as Lex regained His bearings and grabbed hold of her angrily.

But then two strong hands lifted her away from the beast on the floor beside her, hauling her back up into the air once more. Everything whirled around her for a moment, and then she was outside as Clark slowed to a jog and then to a walking pace. The lab was nowhere in sight, and neither was Lex Luthor.

Allowing herself to relax in Clark's arms, Chloe leaned into his chest and gazed up at the sky. It was early evening. The dome above her was inky black but was dotted with tiny pinpricks of white light. Stars. And in that instant, it fully hit her that she was seeing the sky. The air was cool, but refreshingly cool, not the uncomfortable bitterness of the little gray room. Chloe drank in the air, feeling the quiet breeze ruffle her papery robe and listening to the soft rustle as it sighed through the leaves of surrounding trees. She was outside. And she was looking at the sky.

"Clark," she choked out, looking up into his face. His eyes turned down toward her, filled with regret. But she would deal with that later. For now, there was something she needed to do. "Let me down."

"What?" Apparently, he hadn't been expecting that. "Chloe, you're weak—I have to get you home."

"I know," she mumbled. "Just let me down for now. Please?"

He couldn't refuse her demand, not Chloe, who had been locked up, who hadn't been able to experience the outdoors during her stay at the lab. Tenderly, he lowered her to her feet while still keeping a firm hold on her arms. Chloe's bare feet lightly touched down on the sidewalk, still somewhat warm from earlier in the day when the sun had splashed its heat down upon it. She turned back to Clark with a small nod, and he let go of her arms.

For a moment, she was standing. The breeze softly blew her gown against her thighs and teased her matted, greasy hair. She felt free—completely and utterly free. But then her knees turned into the cold oatmeal that she usually had for breakfast, and she felt her legs crumple. Before she came into contact with the sidewalk, Clark seized her out of the air and pulled her back up to her feet, keeping a hold on her arms this time. Chloe turned around so that she was facing him and looked up into his face, which was masked in shadow. Despite the darkness, she could make out the shine in his eyes. There was a strange feeling inside of her, rising to her throat; yet it wasn't the remorse that she often felt. This was something different. She felt her eyes burning, but she did not understand why there would be tears when there was no sadness, no pain.

Without understanding, she allowed the tears to silently descend her cheeks and leaned forward, resting her forehead on the warm chest in front of her. The sobs rose, and her tears were no longer silent as she cried uncontrollably into the front of his shirt like a lost child. She barely noticed when Clark lifted her up again and walked, quickly as he could without disturbing her more, in the direction of her house. She didn't notice that when Clark looked up into the sky, the moonlight reflected off two glistening streams that graced his own cheeks.

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

Chloe blinked back the memory and looked up again at Clark, who was still seated across from her at the table. He seemed to be reliving the memory with her, gazing mournfully down at his own hands.

"I guess I knew I was too late by then. Even though I managed to get you out of there, I knew I was too late. You'd been hurt too much for me to save you," he murmured, finally looking up into Chloe's eyes. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I should have been there. I should have gotten you out before it came to this."

Chloe turned her eyes up to him. Of all her visitors, she responded to Clark the most. Even when her own father came, she remained distant and impassive. But there was something in Clark that brought her back to the present, brought her out of her tortured mind. There was something in Clark that healed her, however slightly. But nonetheless, it healed her enough to allow her to speak. "It wasn't your fault, Clark."

"I wish I could believe that," he replied, looking away again.

Her eyes gazed on again, on into the fathoms of her mind, into a place that nobody else could see. She opened her mouth and closed it, and then she tried again. "Maybe it's better… that I'm here." Her mind was tumbling away again, crumbling like bits of rock falling away from an ancient wall, slipping back into the darkness of the past.

Clark glanced at the grayish room around him skeptically. "Here? In Belle Reeve?"

But Chloe did not respond. Her mind was sinking, drifting, losing the room and the present and reality and Clark. She was sliding away again, away into another memory, this time at the end of that one-week period of freedom after Clark's rescue…

It was dark, but at least she was home. The luminous letters of her digital clock informed her that it was a little past two o'clock in the morning, but she couldn't sleep. If she closed her eyes, she would envision that she was back in the lab once again, back in the grayness and emptiness of the little square room, back on the Table with Him and the green syringe. So she didn't close her eyes. She knew her father was worried about her. So was Clark. So was Lois. So was Lana. She had been far away ever since she arrived, her mind never fully sticking to the present. She knew they were scared for her.

She turned over in bed, trying to keep her mind blank, trying to fight off the oncoming rush of memories that fought to overtake her fading sense of reality. She kicked off the sheets, her body feeling too warm. Imagine that! Two months of feeling nothing but coldness, and now she was uncomfortably hot. She had always hated irony.

Deciding that she could calm herself by getting up and having a glass of water, Chloe pulled herself out of bed onto legs that were still weak from her experience and stumbled into the hallway. She forced herself to walk despite the dull ache in her legs from muscle and bone decay. Gripping the walls for support, she eased herself toward the kitchen, fumbling for the light switch as she arrived. But she couldn't find it. Her hand only met smooth wallpaper.

Frustration welled within her. Two months really wasn't that long to be away from home, but she had already forgotten where the light switch was. Just as her fingers snagged onto it, she heard a faint creak from down the hallway. Panic fluttering in her heart, she refrained from turning on the light and filling the room with a bright yellow glow. Instead she remained where she was, gripping the doorway with one hand while her other hovered over the light switch. Her breathing was harsh and ragged, and she listened intently for another sound.

There it was again, the creaking sound. Her stomach jolted horribly as she heard the footsteps. It was Him, she knew it. He had come to take her back to the lab, back to the little square room, back to the grayness. The emptiness. The solitude. The pain. Had the light been on, her vision would have been obscured by the blur of tears escaping her eyes. But the light was not on. She was encased in darkness.

As quietly as she could, Chloe tiptoed through the kitchen until she managed to find the wooden block that held the large knives. Grasping the handle in her right hand, she slid a knife out from its case and held it up. Her legs trembled with fear and the effort of keeping her upright with no other support. She backed up until she was all the way on the other end of the kitchen, watching the doorway from a distance. A window in the next room allowed the moon to shed pale light onto the doorway, which gave her the advantage of being able to see a figure step into the kitchen before it saw her.

The knife shook horribly in her hand. Her mind reeled through painful memories, but hopelessness could not take over her, for she had power. She had a weapon. The knife was the pipe from the equipment table, only this time she had not thrown it across the little square room and slipped into unconsciousness. She would change things. This time she would stay alert and be prepared for when He would enter, and she would use the pipe in defense. Then she could take his key and escape. She could escape!

The slow pit-pat of footsteps became louder as the person approached. Chloe gripped the pipe as she tried to see through the little window in the gray door, the tap, scuff, tap filling her ears. She didn't even realize that this wasn't the sound she heard. The footsteps she heard were not so authoritative or haughty. They were slow and sad. But she didn't realize this. Her mind was too busy telling her that she was really back in the little square room waiting for Him to enter.

There was a dark figure in the open doorway, blocking the dim silver moonlight. The door of the little square room swung open, and He stepped inside. Trepidation leapt into her throat, and Chloe gave a deafening scream as she dashed forward, the pipe held up over her head. Her legs carried her to the door, and the figure instantly flipped the light switch, filling the room with a bright glow, blinding Chloe for a moment, confusing her. Where was the grayness? Where was the room? Where was He?

The sharp edge of the knife came down on the wall just to the right of the doorway, slicing through the wallpaper, slipping from her grasp, and sliding down to the floor where it clattered loudly against the tile.

"Chloe!"

She looked up, startled by the familiar voice. "D-dad?" Her own voice cracked as she whispered it, seeing her father in the doorway looking frightened and bewildered. Her eyes fell to the floor. A knife? What happened to the pipe? Where was she? Where had the room gone? Where had He gone?

But she couldn't voice any of her questions. All she could sputter was, "W-what… what's going—what happened—?" The tears began to fall again. "Where am I?" Her father wrapped her in a tight embrace as she collapsed forward into his chest. As she crumpled to her knees, her father followed suit and held her in the kitchen doorway, rocking her back and forth as she cried into his shirt and wondering what had become of his daughter.

Her father made the call the next day. After a lifetime of exploring the strangeness of Smallville and writing about freaks who ended up in mental institutions, she was finally becoming a subject worthy of an article for the Torch. After a lifetime of searching for her mother, she had finally found her—within herself.

She was being sent to Belle Reeve.


	7. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six_

"You think it's best that you're here in Belle Reeve?" Clark asked again, pulling Chloe's mind back to the room and the table like a fish being reeled in at a dock on a foggy morning. The tabletop came into focus beneath her distant gaze, and reality slowly drifted into her senses. "Chloe, don't tell me you think that you should stay here."

He stared at her expectantly, waiting for a response. Chloe frowned at her hands lying limply in her lap and mumbled, "My mother…"

"Chloe, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you are not your parents," Clark disputed instantly, his intense eyes piercing her own. "Trust me."

She understood his argument now, but even his bold voice no longer held sway over her. "He did… He turned into His father."

Clark opened his mouth as if to refute her statement, and then he closed it again, seeming to realize that she was correct and assuming defeat. "No," he muttered at last, pure hatred burning in his fiery eyes. "He's worse than his father." It was a long while before he could force the fuming frown from his face. "Anyway, that's beside the point. We're not talking about Lex; we're talking about you."

Chloe hesitated. "I almost killed my father."

"You- you weren't… yourself," Clark faltered, but Chloe knew that he was aware of his own lie. They both fell silent.

Like a liter of soda going flat, the half-hearted quarrel fizzled out.

"I… I talked to your dad the other day," Clark began again, apparently trying to find his footing in the conversation so that Chloe would not drift away again. "With his new job and everything, he's been busy…" His voice trailed off. "My… my mom's making an apple pie for you. She said she'd bring it by later this week if they would allow it here…" Clark leaned back and scratched his head, looking around as if he expected to find the right words floating around the room.

Chloe noticed his struggle and with great effort raised her eyes, as if her line of vision were encumbered by a massive weight. She watched him calmly, her stillness seeming to ease his anxiety. Clark returned the gaze, took a breath, and told her, "It's just so difficult seeing you here, Chloe. You were always filled with energy and passion, and I still can't believe what's happened to you—what he did to you… I guess what I'm trying to say is that… I'm sorry, Chloe. I'm so sorry for everything. I promise I won't ever let you down again. I care about you too much. Chloe, you're my best friend, and I care about you more than you could ever know."

Chloe could feel the sincerity of Clark's words rippling through the air and slightly penetrating the cold emptiness inside of her. "I care about you too, Clark… That's why I tried so hard… to keep your secrets…"

His head snapped up, but Chloe was still staring down at her hands. "W-what?"

"Your secrets… the secrets of the cave…"

Clark could only gape at her, attempting to speak calmly. "Chloe, what secrets are you talking about?"

But Chloe could not answer. A twister had begun spinning in her brain, jarring her forcibly from the present and shoving her mercilessly into the dark caverns of her memories. She was slipping downward, down into the grayness of the room where the green syringe lay eagerly awaiting her, waiting with the Table and Him…

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

Clark could only watch helplessly as Chloe's eyes widened, unfocusing and refocusing as if trying to decide whether to show her the present or whatever twisted image lay in her haunted mind. Her eyes made the decision that he had dreaded most, and he stared at her, powerless to stop the inevitable. Chloe gazed off into the distance, a look of quiet apprehension on her face.

She appeared to be listening to something, something that Clark could not hear. After a moment, her eyes narrowed into slits, and she spat out harshly, "Well, Lex, why don't you stick that needle up your ass and get your results first hand?"

Taken aback by her sudden outbreak of callousness, Clark leaned over and tried to bring her back. "Chloe. Please, Chloe. Don't do this." But it was too late. She had sunk into another memory. He watched as Chloe's eyes went wide, a look of panic crossing her face as her breathing slowly became more laborious. She glanced around her as if searching for a way out, her arms clasped tightly against the armrests of the chair as if bound there. She twisted her head back and forth, an invisible rope keeping her tied to the chair.

"I- I don't know. Smallville, I guess," she replied to the unasked question. Clark turned his head to see if there happened to be someone passing by to help, but there was no one. He hesitantly turned back to Chloe to watch as the scene unfolded before him, to watch as his friend panicked in her mind and answered her silent, invisible assailant.

"Lex, I really don't know! I-I'm telling the truth!" Chloe's voice cracked with fear as she said this, her voice rising in pitch and volume and her breathing becoming heavy and strained. "I swear I don't know! I don't know where he's from!"

Clark's attention was snagged like a leaf caught by the wind. His heart thudded a bit more forcefully against his ribcage as he realized what the question was. He had known why Lex had taken Chloe, or at least had a pretty good idea. But he didn't know what Lex had managed to find out… for he didn't know how much Chloe was aware of.

"I don't know! I don't know where! Please— don't— I don't know where, I don't know where, I don't know!" Chloe's voice had risen to a note of alarm, and tears were streaming down her face as she choked out this sentence. Yet she remained somehow constricted to the chair, staring up at the ceiling as she sobbed uncontrollably. Clark momentarily forgot his consternation at the prospect of Lex knowing more about him than he would like as his attention turned back to the pain his friend was going through inside of her mind.

Chloe let out an agonized scream. "I SWEAR! I don't know! I don't know where, I swear, I SWEAR!"

Then Chloe's left arm jerked as she let out a piercing, agonized wail of torment that rang through the room. As she jolted her arm, her whole body shuddered, and the chair she sat in fell backward and crashed to the floor. Chloe gripped the armrests harder, the invisible binds still strapping her down. At the sound of the shriek, a man in a uniform streaked into the room and dashed over to Chloe's chair where she was still screaming in pain, incomprehensible words spewing from her mouth through her tears. The man lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and shouted, "Sedative to room 217!"

As somebody else came rushing in with a sedative to calm Chloe down, Clark stepped to the side, the scene before him terrifying and unbearable. He was about to leave the room when a single word amongst Chloe's nonsense sounded throughout the room, echoing in his head even after she stopped screaming.

Krypton.

It was unmistakable. In Chloe's torment, the word "Krypton" had slipped, unbidden, from between her lips. Clark stared at her, disbelieving. The sedative was given to Chloe, and she fell into unconsciousness. His heart was fluttering anxiously again as Clark turned and exited the room, stopping for a brief moment in the doorway for one final glance back at what had become of his friend, one question tearing through his mind and eating away at his nerves as he left Belle Reeve:

How much did Chloe know?

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

Being the closer of the two, Chloe received the worst of the explosion.

A brilliant, blinding, resplendent blast of light exploded through the cave with energy so fierce that it shook the walls as it flared outwards in all directions. Instinctively, Chloe's arms flew up to shield her face as she was swept clear off her feet and into the rough wall behind her. There she was pinned, her feet dangling into nothingness, for a fraction of a second— the light, like the gust of a hurricane, holding her chest; the jagged, ancient wall supporting her back. Her right hand was out the furthest, still attempting to protect her vulnerable face. It felt like the light were searing her palm, burning it as if a torch were being applied to the skin.

_A torch. How ironic._

When the infinitesimal yet infinite moment ended, the light receded and Chloe was dropped like a rag doll onto the ground. Her forehead came into contact with solid rock, and with a sharp crack she was out cold.

Letting out a groan, she squinted one eye open into a slit and found consciousness swimming in and out of focus before her. All she could see was the uninteresting, coarse ground stretching out around her. Aching consumed her entire body, but mostly her head, which pounded like the tireless beat of an advancing army's footsteps. Deciding that it wouldn't be very productive to lie there all day, she rolled over and sat up, placing a hand to her forehead and discovering a steam of crimson blood flowing from a deep gash.

_That's good. It'll accessorize nicely with my red purse._

But it wasn't the time for pointless sarcasm, she realized as she stood up, spotting an unconscious Lex Luthor sprawled out in a far corner. Dimly aware of a continuous pain in her hand, Chloe turned over her right palm for a closer examination. Her lungs momentarily constricted as she stared, wide-eyed, at her branded palm. Burned into her raw red skin were three small black marks. One she recognized instantly, for she had seen it earlier that day on the stone in Clark's hand— when she had found him, lo and behold, passed out in Lex's mansion. The other two symbols looked chillingly like others found in the caves.

_So Clark is connected to the caves. The caves are connected to the stones. The stones are connected to the blast of light. The blast of light is connected to… my hand? And the leg bone's connected to the knee bone!_

She shook her head futilely, seeing that her random thought process was partially due to her normal brain (_or lack thereof_) and partly due to her recent head trauma. Dropping her fascinating hand for the time being, Chloe's eyes danced around the cave in search of her friend, from whom the strange blast of light had emitted. Yet the unmistakable broad shoulders and plaid were nowhere to be found. Neither, apparently, was the alcove in which he had stood.

Not possible. Chloe warily trod over to the spot where the opening had been. Her heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest. Nothing. Where there had once been a doorway now adamantly sat a solid wall. Feeling as if she had been thrust into some freakish funhouse, Chloe tested her voice, which remained quiet so as to not awaken her captor.

"Clark?"

The harsh whisper that escaped her lips fell dead in the air. She stared blankly at the firm, unmoving wall. She had seen people who could control bees, start fires, teleport— hell, she had witnessed the depth of Clark's powers— yet she could not for the life of her fathom a moving wall. Her reportorial curiosity, which sometimes felt like a chronic disease to her, overcame her rationality as she stepped forward. She eyed the innocent looking wall as if attempting to sway it out of its disguise by staring at it. Was Clark still in the room masquerading as a cave wall? Had he been chucked somewhere far off from the blast? Had that overwhelming light hurt him? Then again, what could hurt Clark, right? Still, she called out his name again, louder this time. Was he… _behind_ the wall, perchance? She stepped so close to the wall that she was mere inches from it, ready to press her ear against its rocky texture to try and hear anything going on behind it. It was what she often did with the door of her bedroom to see if the coast was clear to sneak out late at night- a tactic she had never divulged to her father.

She lifted her hands to place them on the stone wall, allowing her fingers to brush the jagged rock. It was cold. She pressed her palms up against it. Her right palm began to sear again as if she had placed her hand on a stovetop. And suddenly the wall exploded in a burst of pure white light so intense that Chloe had to squint and stumbled back a few paces, her arms once again flying up to shield her eyes from being blinded. The light was terrible, unbearable… yet somehow intriguing, beckoning to her. In a lapse of thought, she started moving forward again, toward the cave wall that had vanished behind the glare, into the light…

Her right palm stung, feeling excruciatingly like it was being sliced open and roasted like a marshmallow over a white-hot flame. The light had long since engulfed her, and she had long since stopped walking forward. She could no longer feel the hard, jagged rock beneath her fingers, and a turbulent wind had picked up all around her, whipping her hair around her face and her clothes around her body. She squinted, nearly blinded by the intense light and the wind pouring over her body. All at once, her palm throbbed painfully, and she turned it around and squinted at it.

The three symbols were glowing, each a different primary color. The red, blue, and yellow light illuminated her face, filling her sight as she stared, awe-stricken, at her luminescent flesh. That was when the images started flowing over her like rain in a heavy storm.

At first, they were images that she didn't understand—big, crystalline buildings and machinery that she didn't recognize and people and a brilliant sunset. Words spilled into her mind, words that held no meaning for her. And then she saw it.

A tiny spaceship, in which was placed a tiny boy.

He was sent across the stars, raining down to earth in the protection of the meteors. The Kents' red pickup truck crashing in a field. The boy running unbelievably fast. The boy climbing a tree and breaking off an entire branch by accident. The boy growing up, getting hit by a sleek silver sports car, fighting super powered teenagers, going into the caves, learning of his heritage and his destiny, bending a metal crowbar… Some images were familiar… Most were entirely new…

And words. Words drummed against her brain. Kal-El. Jor-El. Lara.

Krypton…

These words had meaning. Kal-El was Clark. Krypton was his home planet. Chloe didn't even realize that she was holding her breath until her burning lungs released it, and the images and words faded to ghosts and whispers, and then to nothing at all. She glanced down at her hand, still squinting in the light as the wind died down, and realized that her palm had acted as some sort of a key, a key to all the knowledge and information within the caves. But her brain was not meant for this; most of the knowledge escaped her the instant it was gone, yet some she retained. The blast of light as Clark vanished—_when the crystal was complete_, she surprised herself by knowing—had been so forceful on her hand that it had inscribed upon her flesh its symbols, giving her access to the secrets… the secrets of the cave…

The symbols on her palm were no longer glowing; now they were nothing more than charred and black, burned into her skin. Chloe stared at her palm, mesmerized and awe-stricken. The light faded around her, and when she looked up, she discovered that she was standing in the caves, an inch from the solid stone wall. Dizziness fell upon her as her brain absorbed the truth. A black shroud was overcoming her vision, and exhaustion was beginning to take over her body.

Her last thought before descending into unconsciousness was that Clark Kent was an alien.


	8. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

Making sure that nobody was around, he slowed to a speed at which he was visible and then to a walking pace. Several prematurely fallen leaves crunched beneath his tan shoes as he dragged his feet along the sidewalk, hands in his pants pockets and eyes trained down at his feet. Chloe's screams were still echoing in his head, her tortured face still floating through his mind.

He had never imagined that he would come back to find everything so badly awry. He had resided in the Fortress of Solitude for two months, unaware of the happenings of his hometown despite his new knowledge of his own roots. What pained him the most was that he hadn't even known that Chloe was missing, hadn't even known that his house was in ruins—he was too busy trapped in that crystalline structure while Jor-El taught him about his heritage. Finally he had found a way out, or, rather, Jor-El told him the way out. He shuddered, not sure of what he thought about this new ability. Longing to see his friends and family again had empowered him to leap up into the air… and fly back to Smallville.

He had returned to find a construction sight where his house used to be; they were rebuilding the farm. His parents had been mildly injured by a meteor that hit the house, thankfully not exploding through the room they were in. Jason, though receiving the same amount of the blast that Clark's parents had, died, which was no surprise considering he had already been shot. Clark had learned all of this when he found his parents, who were living in a small apartment in the middle of town. They had asked many questions about his two-month absence, but he gave them few answers. He was still turning it all over in his head.

And that had been when he discovered that Chloe was missing. Gabe Sullivan had sent a search party out, but they had long since given up. Unable to bear the prospect of losing her, Clark had set out and done some digging—Chloe would have been proud—and had found out that Chloe and Lex had gone into the caves, and later Lex had ended up going to a new building in Metropolis. Which was where he found Chloe.

He knew he was too late right when he got her out. She seemed so frail, so broken. He had taken her home. A few days later, she went to the Kent farm to lie in the grass. Two days after that, she ambushed her father in the kitchen with a knife. Unsure of what to do, Gabe called Belle Reeve to have some tests done to determine Chloe's ailment. Belle Reeve decided that her stay be permanent.

Clark turned his eyes up to the building in front of him. It was not home, but he supposed it would suffice for now. He trudged up the front steps and into the building, arriving in the apartment. His parents were both at the table next to the kitchenette. Jonathan was looking rather dignified in flannel with the newspaper propped up in front of him, and Martha seemed to be imagining that the small alcove was actually a large farmhouse kitchen as she stood over her husband, clad in an apron and pouring a pitcher of lemonade into his empty glass.

"Clark, you're home," she greeted when Jonathan's glass was full. Clark couldn't help but cringe. This was certainly not home, but for right now home was in pieces from the meteor shower.

"Hey, Son," Jonathan smiled as he glanced up momentarily from the newspaper. "How's… how's Chloe doing?"

Clark tried to conceal his sigh. Chloe had been sent to Belle Reeve two weeks ago, and nearly every day Clark went to visit her. And nearly every day, his parents' questions brought his mind back to the devastation that he was trying to forget and that was, ultimately, his own doing.

"Same as ever," Clark replied dully, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. Martha strode over to him, hung up the apron, and put her hand gently on his shoulder.

"Clark, you can't blame yourself."

Oh yes, he could. And he very well did. "How can I not blame myself when I know the reason that Lex kidnapped her in the first place?" Lex. The name sent flames of anger through his body. Right after Chloe's disappearance, Lex had moved to Metropolis, leaving paid personnel to tend to his Smallville mansion and to his comatose father. Clark hadn't seen him since Chloe's rescue, when Lex had stopped him with the piece of Kryptonite. He had never felt more betrayed. Lex—his friend!—had kidnapped and tortured Chloe. Clark knew he could never look at him again without feeling disgust and betrayal. Never before had he felt hatred this pure and this furious for another human being.

"Clark—"

"Mom, the only reason Lex took Chloe to his lab was because he must have seen me do something with my abilities, or something that made him suspicious. I—I think I might…" Clark hesitated, searching for the words. "I think I might give up my abilities."

Jonathan's attention was fully on Clark now, the newspaper lying forgotten on the tabletop. "Clark, as happy as I would be to see you finally have a normal life, you can't just give up who you are."

"I'm not giving up who I am. I just think it would be better for everyone if I stopped using them. Then there would be no chance of anyone ever getting suspicious or anyone that I care about ending up like Chloe," Clark explained.

Martha exchanged a look with Jonathan. "Well, your father and I did make that suggestion about wearing a disguise. Clark, you help people—even save their lives—every day. If you wore some kind of disguise whenever you went out to help someone—" She looked over at Jonathan for help, but he didn't seem to have anything useful to add.

Clark shrugged. "I just think it would be safer for everyone if I just didn't use my abilities anymore."

Martha was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Clark, there are so many people who wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for you. I know it's a big responsibility, but you have these amazing gifts, and you can help people in ways that nobody else would be able to. I think that it would be wrong to deprive the world of what you can do, to stop helping people. Jor-El may have other plans for you, but I think that your destiny has always been to help people. And you can't do that if you hide yourself away from the world." Clark said nothing, and Martha gave him a tiny smile when she looked up into her son's eyes. "Just think about the disguise. I've put it on your bed."

Clark's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. He hadn't realized that she had already made him this disguise that she always talked about. With a nod, he turned and strode down the hall and into his small bedroom. Lying neatly on his bed was an odd blue suit emblazoned with a five-sided figure, in which resided a slightly distorted 'S'. Next to the bright blue suit was a crimson cape at which Clark could only stare.

_Lois would have a field day if she ever saw me wearing this_, he thought grimly. Then he reminded himself that he had only seen Lois several times since Chloe's kidnapping. She had visited Chloe at Belle Reeve with Clark once and had left while muttering something about the Daily Planet. Then she had said to Clark that even if Chloe's spirit was dead, maybe her dream could still live on. Then she had moved to Metropolis.

Shaking his head, Clark walked over to the costume and was about to dump it in his closet when his mother's voice rang through his head. _'You have these amazing gifts, and you can help people in ways that nobody else would be able to. I think that it would be wrong to deprive the world of what you can do, to stop helping people. Jor-El may have other plans for you, but I think that your destiny has always been to help people.'_ Clark sighed and lifted up the blue suit, frowning at it. She made a point. Most of his friends would be dead at least five times over had Clark not intervened. But still… Chloe. He had not been able to save Chloe…

But maybe… maybe _that_ was exactly her point. By wearing the disguise, Clark could help people and not have anyone become suspicious of him, therefore averting any possible pain for his loved ones and avoiding another occurrence like that which had happened to Chloe. _For Chloe…_

Clark quietly closed the door and found himself pulling the costume over his body, fastening the red cape to it and then turning to the full-length mirror on the closet door. His reflection looked entirely foreign. The cape cascaded down to the floor, rippling gently behind him. The blue suit stretched tightly over his muscles, making him appear stronger than he felt. He looked so ridiculous that for a moment he considered taking it off and chucking it across the room. But he did not. He was slightly entranced by the idea that nobody would know it was him doing all those things. Perhaps he could even practice flying in this getup.

_This is for Chloe,_ he thought again, determined to at least give the disguise a try. It was for her infectious smile, her biting sarcasm, her endearing laugh. It was for all of the wonderful memories he had with her and all of the painful ones. It was for all of the tears she had shed over him and all of the harsh words she had shot at him. It was for her wise advice and her continuous caring. This was for Chloe.

This was for the fiery, exuberant, lively spirit that always seemed to be running through her veins, propelling her towards another idea for an article. This was for the girl that had been dealt so much pain, whose spirit had been snuffed out by the torture she had faced in the lab. This was for the infectious smile, biting sarcasm, endearing laugh, and fiery spirit that Clark would never get to witness again. For the girl who had died within her own living body. For the friend that had been taken away from him.

_This is for Chloe._


End file.
